Tomb Raider

[Serephim]

http://teamcoco.com/video/clueless-gamer-conan-obrien-reviews-tomb-raider

I have not laughed this hard at a videogame review in a really long time, wow. I have strong feelings about the direction this game took, but what the hell. It looks promising.

So with my budget, it's between Lara's ass and Chef Gibbs-Raiden, so...

...yeah who bought this one?

Edit:

oh not out yet. Well wait a few days nevermind.

[Duckboy]

All of Conan's Clueless Gamer segments are great.

[Serephim]

Yeah i let his other ones play after watching that one, they are great.

[shadowgoten]

So apparently the new Tomb Raider is definitely as good as the older ones, with all the puzzle elements and stuff, for some reason Squeenix decided rather than market the game to the fans of those types of games, they'd just show on rails scenes of her getting her shit kicked in for all their marketing of the game. I have no clue how that's smart, but ok.

[Duckboy]

Yeah, it's idotic. Video games are already filled to the brim with nerds who seem to hate women and treat them like a subspecies of human who have to somehow prove they're "real gamers". It's a toxic environment for girl gamers already, and things like that don't help. The Conan video is funny because of him, but the video did show Lara Croft getting the shit beat out of her in tons of different ways. It's uncomfortable that that's how the game is actually advertised.

[Serephim]

It's really the reason why I was initially put off from the game. The older game was entirely gameplay centric, and the coverage of this game has basically been poking and impaling Lara's new model with every pointy object that appeared onscreen, like some sort of odd interactive torture fetish. To be fair one of the better things about PS1 Tomb Raider was the amount of ways the game could murder you without gravity or drowning. But all of these were experienced while in full control and without cutscenes making everything fall to pieces.

Lara's restrictive movement was also interesting because it forced you to actually plan and think your movements and jumps out. Games like Uncharted and Infamous have really great movement engines that are cool because of how much cool shit you can do. But scaling a burning building while shooting people at isn't the same feel as carefully walking and looking over edges for minutes at a time because a misstep or bad positioning kills you.

Soooooo this remake sort of struck me as Uncharted, except reskinned with a cute girl getting her shit beat in by everything and manhandled by everybody. You know, typical "reboot with more serious plot" stuff. But if the general opinion from people is that the game manages to provide an experience that doesn't feel like it's on cutscene rails then i can happily pick it up. I just really hope the entire game isn't a torture cutscene.

[1LT Worm]

H:iamafuckingtool:wever, she has nice b:iamafuckingtool: :iamafuckingtool:bs, and that's all the matters.

But, when did Square take :iamafuckingtool:ver T:iamafuckingtool:mb Raider?

(P.S. Happy Greenm:iamafuckingtool:te Day)

[OverbounD]

Square Enix apparently bought Eidos in 2009.

[ila]

I bought it on a whim last night. I'm currently about 4 hours in and I'm really enjoying the game. There have been plenty of moments so far where the game has stopped and let you take the time to explore an area instead of forcing you through a pile of QTEs. Graphically the game looks amazing (at least it does on PC) and I really like Lara's new design. In fact all the characters look really good, so props to Crystal Dynamics for that.

Gameplay has been mostly platforming and exploration, with some light puzzle solving on the side--particularly during the games "Optional Tombs" (No really, that is what it calls them) There are some heavy cover based shooting sections, but the way Lara fluidly moves between cover helps them feel different from Mass Effect's "Press X to stick to the cover" mechanics. (I have NOT played Uncharted so I can't comment on similarities.)

I can't make any final judgments, but overall I'm still compelled to play the game, and I think that is what matters. Also Lara isn't nearly as whiny and weak as the trailers make her out to be, although if I was in her situation I'd probably feel the same way.

[ila]

So yeah, I actually finished the game last night. I'm at 78% completion as far as finding everything goes, so there's still an opportunity to do some more stuff. Time for some more concrete thoughts though.

As far as gameplay is concerned, I love the game when it gives me the opportunity to run around and explore. Thankfully these moments are very frequest. Lara moves perfectly although sometimes the context sensitive commands can be confusing when multiple things are around. This is usually never during combat though.

Speaking of combat, I feel that it is the game's weakest point. If I'm given the opportunity to take out enemies using stealth I will use it, but when the game puts you in shootout mode it gets a little less fun. Part of that might also just be the fact that I suck at aiming.

The games QTE/Action segments are actually really fun and not horribly unfair. A lot of them actually don't feel like QTEs at all since the required actions (like using your shotgun on an incoming obstacle) actually correspond to their normal gameplay controls. I also love the sequences that require you to actively run and jump as the area slowly collapses around you.

I loved the storyline. It was grounded in reality for the first half and then starts to get mystical in the second, and while the game did revel in beating Lara up in the first half, it makes it that much more satisfying when Lara gets the confidence to actively fight back.

I've thought about giving multiplayer a shot, but it unfortunately is all combat based, so I probably won't dive too deep into it.

That being said, I really enjoyed Tomb Raider. I'm compelled to 100% it and I look forward to future games in this reboot. That being said it might be worth waiting until a Steam sale to check it out though.

[Shane]

It's one of the only games I've looked forward to in 2013. I bought the Survival Edition on Steam. I actually was never too into the series before, having only briefly played the first on the PlayStation and a bit of one on the Dreamcast. This entry may or may not be like the others; I honestly wouldn't know. It does, however, hold up as an adventure game and sparked my interest to actually play the older titles to have a deeper understanding of the series as a whole and see where it's going.